A MODEL FOR MEASURING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SERVICE RECOVERY AND SERVICE QUALITY: A CASE STUDY AT THE PUBLIC UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

The study aimed to investigate the critical success factors of service recovery towards service quality at the National University of Malaysia (UKM) library. The study also proposes a model of systematic complaint management which applied to academic library as a tool of service recovery. The variables included in this research are empowerment, culture and psychology, management system, compensation and speed of recovery as the independent variables and service quality as the dependent variable. A questionnaire was designed and used as the data gathering instrument based on past research. A total of 315 samples were successfully gathered from 377 questionnaires distributed among the regular users of Tun Seri Lanang Library (UKM). Based on the generated results, it’s proven that there is a positive significant relationship between service recovery and service quality (r = 0.632**, p = 0.000) at the 1 per cent significance levelService recovery, Complaint management, Service quality, Library

Strategies for implementing activity-based costing in the UK manufacturing industry

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings with a case study on why activity based costing lacks impact in the UK manufacturing industry. Activity based costing was performed on selected MT range subsystems of an electrical power generator to compare with the current UNN UK’s conven-tional costing system. The results have found that the current costing system works well for the MT products and thus change of costing system is not necessary for these products. The activity based costing system can be partially implemented in UNN UK for areas requiring detailed costing infor-mation such as new renewable products. Based on the result of the case study, this paper also high-lights the strategies need to be considered in order to adopt activity based costing within a typical manufacturing environment

Oil price shocks and their consequences on Sudan's GDP growth and unemployment rates

Since the advent of oil production and export in late 1999, Sudan economy became more reliant on oil exports proceeds. This situation has exposed the economy to the negative effect of oil price fluctuations. In general, oil exporting countries exhibit positive impact on their economy to oil price increase, while oil importing economies suffer. Unlike developing economies, there is a paucity of research in developing countries with regards to the relationship between the macro-economy and oil price shocks. In this regard, Sudan has been neglected from serious studies related to oil price shocks. This research attempts to contribute towards filling this gap. In doing so, Vector Auto-Regression model is employed to investigate the impact of oil price shocks on the real GDP growth and unemployment rates over the period 2000 - 2014. The Granger causality test suggests that unemployment has statistically and significantly influenced real GDP growth. Results from the Impulse Response Functions and Forecast Error Variance Decomposition analysis suggest that increase in real oil price has greater influence on GDP growth. Interestingly, real oil price decrease has a significant positive impact on unemployment rate

The Effects of Dopants on The Physico-Chemical Properties of Vanadyl Pyrophosphate Catalysts

Vanadium phosphorus oxide (VPO) is a commercial catalyst for selective oxidation of butane to maleic anhydride. The nature of the oxidant of the doped and undoped (VOhP207 catalysts derived from (i) VPO, reaction of V20s with H3P04 in isobutanol and (ii) VPD, reaction of VOP04·2H20 with isobutanol were investigated. Metal cations, namely of sodium, potassium, magnesium and bismuth, were added as dopants into (VO)2P2O7 lattice. From the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) analysis, the catalysts which have gone through a series of redox reaction do not produce the original morphology of (VO)2P207. The results indicated that the addition of dopants lowered the Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) surface area of vanadyl pyrophosphate catalysts, except Bi-doped VPD catalysts. All the doped VPO and VPD catalysts have been shown a vanadyl pyrophosphate phase with three distinct peaks at 22.9°, 28.4° and 29.3° in X-ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis. The Bi-doped VPO and VPD catalysts had significantly shifted the first reduction peak to a lower temperature in H2-TPR analysis. The introduction of Bi have modified the (VOhP207 matrix and mobility of these catalyst increased. It can be seen from TPRn analysis where VPDBil increased the selectivity of butene and butadiene (selective products) and decreased the selectivity of CO and C02 (unselective products)

Shrewd Selection Speeds Surfing: Use Smart EXP3!

In this paper, we explore the use of multi-armed bandit online learning techniques to solve distributed resource selection problems. As an example, we focus on the problem of network selection. Mobile devices often have several wireless networks at their disposal. While choosing the right network is vital for good performance, a decentralized solution remains a challenge. The impressive theoretical properties of multi-armed bandit algorithms, like EXP3, suggest that it should work well for this type of problem. Yet, its real-word performance lags far behind. The main reasons are the hidden cost of switching networks and its slow rate of convergence. We propose Smart EXP3, a novel bandit-style algorithm that (a) retains the good theoretical properties of EXP3, (b) bounds the number of switches, and (c) yields significantly better performance in practice. We evaluate Smart EXP3 using simulations, controlled experiments, and real-world experiments. Results show that it stabilizes at the optimal state, achieves fairness among devices and gracefully deals with transient behaviors. In real world experiments, it can achieve 18% faster download over alternate strategies. We conclude that multi-armed bandit algorithms can play an important role in distributed resource selection problems, when practical concerns, such as switching costs and convergence time, are addressed.Comment: Full pape